“Thank you, Mr. Lewis.” I tucked the cigar into my jacket after shaking his hand.
“Call me Carl. I know you have a lot of pride and I respect that, but I promised Bethany’s mother I would offer you a job at the company.” He leaned in closer. “Six figure salary.”
“I appreciate that—I really do. I’m going to take care of your daughter, but I don’t think wearing a suit and working a desk is in my future. I haven’t told Bethany this yet, but the shelter is looking to add an Assistant Director and I’m the top candidate for the job. It won’t be a six figure salary, but I’ll get to do what I love.” I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “But if that doesn’t work out, who knows—maybe I’ll sell my soul for a corporate gig.”
“Your soul is already in my daughter’s purse, along with your balls. If you haven’t figured that out, you will soon enough.” He chuckled and waved to his wife. “Mine are right over there.”
“You’re probably right.” I raised my eyebrows and laughed along with him. “Either way, I appreciate the offer.”
Carl walked away and I sipped my beer, looking around the reception hall. Everything I neede
d in my life was right in front of me. We would have one more night alone in the apartment, but the next day we were heading up north for our honeymoon. My parole officer had been kind enough to allow me to leave the state for it, which I was incredibly thankful for. I couldn’t wait to officially begin my life with Bethany, raise our child together, and learn what it was like to have a real family. Things looked like they were shaping up nicely for Sloane as well, even if he did have himself quite a handful with Amy.
The reception ended close to midnight and we climbed back into the limousine. We were both exhausted, but we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. The instant we were in the apartment, we started tearing at our clothes, anxious to satisfy the craving that had been building all day.
“Are you ready to get fucked by your husband?” I pressed my lips to her neck and kissed her.
“Absolutely...” She let out a gasp. “Every night for the rest of my life.”
“That’s exactly how much time we have.” I pulled her close and our lips met.
The End
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BONUS CONTENT: MR. MOUNTAIN
Chapter 1: Heather
The sun had been down for a while and what was supposed to be a great trip to the Appalachian Mountains with friends had turned into a miserable tour of falling snow as I drove down a long, seemingly deserted road. Even the radio had given up on me as I fought between bouts of static for a brief melody of actual music. I didn’t even care if it was a genre I hated if it kept me company and reminded me I wasn’t alone in the world. Each push of the radio’s scan button brought a little bit of hope, but it wasn’t long until the static started again and the music was drowned out.
“Come on. Give me something.” I tapped the radio and hit the scan button again.
My cell phone was dying and I hadn’t even thought to pick up my car charger because I thought I would find the cabin I was searching for long before it ran out of juice. It wouldn’t have helped anyway because the reception was so bad my GPS couldn’t even get a signal. I stared at the spinning circle indicating it was searching for satellites, but it always timed out before anything was found.
Ugh.
I cranked the heater up another notch and tried to peer through the mixture of snow and ice forming on my windshield. The wiper kept pushing it out of my line of sight, but the cold outside was making it harder to defrost as the temperature dropped. I squinted my eyes against the darkness and tried to see with the abysmal light the high beams were managing to produce in the falling snow. Mostly I just got a reflection of snow that seemed to be falling in sheets instead of flakes.
Yeah, this is bad.
The situation was going to turn from bad to dangerous very soon if I didn’t find a road sign to guide me back to civilization. I wasn’t even sure where I took a wrong turn. I tried to remember the landmarks and follow my GPS even when the signal went out, but I had made a terrible mistake somewhere along the way. The road stretched on, my eyes got weary, and the gas meter signaled that the end of my journey was coming fast.
“Please, just a bar. A half a bar? A quarter of a bar?” I picked up my cell phone and tried to get a signal but I was still met with nothing. I even tried flipping it into airplane mode in hopes of somehow picking up a distant service tower, but it went right back to zero bars when I told it to search for a cellular signal.
Driving around in the dark until my car ran out of gas wasn’t going to help the situation and there was nothing for miles that I could see. It certainly didn’t help that my vision was fairly obscured by the frost on my windshield and the blinding snow falling in front of me. I let my car roll to a stop and kept the engine running as I thought about my situation.
Am I the only person on this freaking road?
I pulled my coat from the bag behind me and opened my door. I just needed to get a lay of the land and see if I could somehow get a signal if I wasn’t confined to my car. My coat did little to protect me from the elements as I wandered away from my headlights with my phone in the air, searching for any sign of service. I was met with a constant row of empty bars, and every step I took plunged me further into the darkness.
“Come on...” I muttered through chattering teeth.
I heard noises in the distance and felt fear creeping up my spine. It was cold, but there were still wild animals out there, especially in the mountains. I turned towards my car and quickly ran back to safety.
Yeah, forget that.
Exiting and entering the vehicle had broken the warm seal I was enjoying from my heater, so I cranked the heater up as high as it would go and blew into my hands. After a few minutes, I could no longer see my breath so I took off my jacket and killed the headlights. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see them anyway.